Park Plaza Church of Christ: “History of the Restoration”
Spring 2014 [March – May]
Teacher: Bob Young
“Restoration History”
A fresh look at Restoration History that provides an orientation to help us understand the challenges and opportunities for Restoration in today’s world. What aspects of church history prepared the way for the Restoration? Why did the Restoration Movement catch on quickly on the frontier? What have been and are the challenges for continuing Restoration? Where do we go from here?
[Note: The first nine sessions will be videotaped and made available online with accompanying notes and Powerpoint presentations.]
March 5
Here we go…. (a survey of 15 centuries, up to about A.D. 1500)
March 12
Reformation survey
Groups in the Reformation, counter-Reformation
Politics; the Enlightenment
March 26
How the Reformation set the stage for and contributed to the Restoration
Early U.S. history ;Early Restoration longings and efforts
April 2
Barton W. Stone, Cane Ridge [pictures]
April 9
Barton W. Stone, Cane Ridge [pictures]
April 16
Thomas Campbell and the European Backgrounds of the Restoration
April 23
Alexander Campbell, Bethany [pictures]
April 30
Alexander Campbell, Bethany [pictures]
May 7
The Restoration continues; where do we go from here?
May 14
Wrestling with God—1 [movie, part 1]
May 21
Wrestling with God—2 [movie, part 2]
May 28
Where do we go from here?Conclusion [discussion only]
March 5
Here we go….surveying 15 centuries—up to about A.D. 1500
Where to begin?
Flow of history/culture. Development of thought patterns. To understand where we are today, must think about the development of thought—religious, philosophic, scientific.
ROME
Much of Roman thought around the time of Christ was shaped by Greek thinking. Greeks tried to build society upon the city-state, polis, values were established with reference to the polis/society. Socrates, faced with death or exile from that which gave life meaning.
Later, Greeks and Romans tried to build society on their gods, but the gods were not divine, but were merely amplified humanity. The Greeks, and the Romans after them, had no infinite God, and thus had so sufficient reference point for developing thinking and living. Legislating morals and family life failed, even with impressive legal reforms and welfare programs, because the human ‘gods’ were insufficient, so Rome fell.
In contrast, the Christians had absolute, universal values by which to live and judge the society. These values were the foundation for basic dignity and human value. The Christians were Rome’s enemies. Why? The Christians were not killed because they worshiped Jesus, but because they were rebels against the state. They were rebellious because they worshiped Jesus as God, and only worshiped the infinite-personal God. The Caesars could not tolerate such. Second, no authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions.
Even though Constantine ended the persecution when Christianity became a legal religion (313 A.D.), and then the official state religion of the Empire (381 A.D.), the majority of the citizens of the Empire continued their old ways. Social life was exalted above the intellectual, officially sponsored art was decadent, music also, and apathy prevailed.
All of this is to say that Rome did not fall because of external invasion, but because there was not a sufficient base for the society. The barbarians only seized the opportunity afforded by internal weakness.
MIDDLE AGES
The breakdown of Rome and the subsequent invasions were a time a social, political and intellectual turmoil. In contrast to leaders like Ambrose of Milan (339-397) and Augustine (354-430) who emphasized biblical teachings and Christianity, there was an increasing distortion away from biblical teaching. The importance of people was diminished and a developing concept of spirituality tended to set aside reality. The result was that the Christianity set forth in the New Testament was distorted and a humanistic element was added. This was most obvious in the fact that the authority of the church increasingly took precedence over the teaching of the Bible. New cultural elements provided alternatives to a culture that could be called Christian or biblical.
Thus, the Middle Ages (~500-~1400) were a time in which we can generally see the continuing response which was to mix the secular and the Christian. Despite the fact that the church provided hospitals and charitable institutions, the integration of the church and state presented a new problem. The state, strong or weak, has always posed a problem to the church (religion), especially in areas of morality. In the medieval period, the intermingling resulted in the fact that Christian baptism came to have not only spiritual significance, but also social and political significance because it denoted entrance into society. (Jews were non-persons in this sense.) If the church baptized or consecrated the state that only worsened the dilemma, because a government that appears to support the belief system of society can betray society with the greatest impunity. Further, the church had tremendous difficulty being salt to the society.
More must be said, however, for even as the church provided a model for absolute power, it also developed as a threat to personal monarchies. The Conciliar Movement in the late-medieval church stood for the idea that the real authority of the church was not vested in one bishop (the pope), but in all of the bishops together. Thus the Council of Constance (1414-1418) deposed three rival popes, ending a scandalous epoch in church history, declaring that the council’s authority came directly from Christ and that all men, including the pope, were subject to its authority in questions of faith and church reform. The movement did not last and the principle of monarchy would triumph within the Roman church.
Paradoxically, the frequent conflict between the state and the church contributed to the evolution of a political theory that emphasized governmental limitation and responsibility.
The final piece of the puzzle in this whirlwind tour is to consider what was happening in Christian thought and the influences of classical thought. The syncretism of thought made it easy for Greek and Roman thought forms to creep into the cracks of faith. Faith was coming to depend less and less on the Bible and more and more on the authority of the church. Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.) opened the door to placing revelation and human reason on an equal footing, reasserting Aristotelian concepts (Aristotle, 384-322 B.C.).
Under Charlemagne, the church became a cultural force, coextensive with state power. The Middle Ages were born with an awakened cultural and intellectual life and increased piety. But the church moved away from the biblical teachings with distortions of biblical doctrine. Soon European thought would be divided into two lines, both of which have come down to influence our time: the humanistic elements of the Renaissance, and the Bible foundations of the Reformation.
RENAISSANCE
As we come to the Renaissance (rebirth), we must not think everything prior was completed dark, and we must not think everything in the rich period of the Renaissance functioned for the good and advancement of humanity.
The last half of the eleventh century (1050-1100 A.D.) and into the twelfth century, there was economic expansion (Crusades), Oriental trade, textiles, political freedom in town halls, the emergence of universities which offered education that was not purely clerical, written languages, etc. This was not a rebirth of humanity, but the rebirth of an idea about humanity. While the Renaissance is often dates 14th, 15th, 16th centuries, I am suggesting its philosophical antecedents begin much earlier, which brings us back to Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.), especially his view of mankind. Aquinas believed the will was fallen but not the intellect. This meant people could rely on their human reasoning, drawing good and truth from whatever source, including non-Christian philosophers. The result was that philosophy was gradually separated from God’s revelation of truth, that is, from the Bible, and philosophy came to be an independent, autonomous discipline.
A better understanding of the importance of this development can be seen in a quick review of the two distinct world views that were advanced by Plato and Aristotle three to four centuries before Christ. Plato emphasized the absolutes, or ideals, almost the abstract. (Remember the allegory of the cave.) Aristotle focused on the real, the particulars, individual things, individual persons. Aquinas brought this focus on individual things into the philosophy of the late Middle Ages and opened the door for humanistic elements of the Renaissance.
Time forbids a detailed look, but we have to understand this contrast, for it determines where one begins in the search for meaning in life. (Faith seeking understanding, understanding seeking faith.) The contrast has been described as the higher and lower.
- The higher includes God, grace, unseen things, the unity of the universals.
- The lower focuses on the created, nature, the visible, the diversity of individuals.
Where shall one begin? Beginning with the individual, one has no way to arrive at universals or absolutes. The result was that the humanism of the Renaissance moved steadily toward modern humanism—value system rooted in the belief that man is his own measure, autonomous, totally independent.
It is hard to characterize all of this as bad—in 1340 Petrarch climbed Mont Ventoux, just to climb it. Architecture changed dramatically, the arts developed, but man was at the center. Orchestration was developed. Michelangelo’s David is a good example of the change. This is not the David of the Old Testament, but man becoming great, tearing himself out of the rock, victorious. Da Vinci was perhaps the first modern mathematician. The ultimate impact was complete faith in man, man capable of solving everything. This was the ultimate outcome of the victory of Aristotelian thought over Platonic thought in the West.
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March 12
Reformation survey
Groups in the Reformation, counter-Reformation
How the Reformation altered political structures
The Enlightenment
[How the Reformation set the stage for and contributed to the Restoration]
SUMMARY
Last week’s whirlwind tour of the first 1500 years of Christian history surfaced a number of potential trouble spots that we need to keep an eye on.
- The possibility of an absolute, objective value system not based on the ability to think, observe, or experience
- The relationship between church and state
- The separation or integration of the spiritual (including the Bible) and the secular (including humanistic elements)
- The nature of the authority of the Bible (must it be mediated through the church or through human thought and analysis)
- The alliance or conflict between philosophy and theology
- The church was slow to study itself and develop an ecclesiology
- The capacity or incapacity of humankind, and the related question of whether or to what extent human being participate or cooperate in salvation.
REFORMATION
The Renaissance focused the problem of what gives life meaning and unifies life, specifically what universals provide morality and truth. At the same time, another great movement was emerging in the north of Europe. The Reformation was a reaction against the distortions of humanism in the Renaissance. Both deal with the same problems, but give opposite answers.
Aquinas thought the will was fallen, but the mind was not. This resulted in people thinking they could think out all of the answers. The Reformation suggested an incapable man, totally dependent on God. This resulted eventually in doctrines such as predestination, spiritual enlightenment, pre-millennialism (as opposed to post-millennialism), and others. We must wrestle with and understand this dilemma. Can human beings understand the Bible without divine enlightenment?
Wycliffe (1320-1384) emphasized the Bible as supreme authority. Huss (1369-1415) sought to return to the teachings of the Bible and stressed the Bible as the final authority and salvation through Christ and his work. He built on Wycliffe’s views of the priesthood of all believers. Huss’s influence lives on in the Bohemian Brethren, and the Moravian Church.
Luther confronted the abuses of the church with his Ninety-five Theses (1517). One must see what is happening in Europe: in the south, the High Renaissance is working out a humanistic idea of man at the center, autonomous, especially visible in the authority of the church. In the north, the Reformation is suggesting another alternative. We must spend a little time here and try to resolve a problem before it surfaces two to three centuries later in the U.S.
In summary, the Reformers turned not to man as beginning from himself, but to the Christianity of the Bible and the early church. They saw some of the distortions that had entered. They refused to accept the autonomy (and at times the capacity) of human reason. The Bible is authority; the question is how we will access its truth.
Remember the times—the church had supreme authority, equal to or over the Bible, with a strong element of human work added, and a synthesis of biblical teaching and pagan thought. What will be an adequate corrective? The Reformation with its various branches (Luther, Calvin-Zwingli-Knox, Anglicans, Radical-Anabaptists-Spiritualists) eventually led to the Catholic counter-reformation (1549). The various branches of the Reformation, even with their differences, in one sense represented a unity, a single system.
The Bible tells us true things about God, true things about people. Each person has dignity in God’s image, each is equal in the priesthood of believers; each is equal in guilt before God. Thus the summary: only the Bible, only faith (grace).
POLITICS
The return to the Bible gradually brought political freedom. The biblical teachings, in national religions at first, gave society the opportunity for freedom without chaos. Freedom was based on the absolutes of the Bible. Moral law is based on Scripture. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of conscience existed in the citizen’s relationship to the state. Law is not just civil and criminal conduct, but is related to the entire structure of a society, including its government. As a result, the ordinary citizen has a freedom from arbitrary governmental power which would restrict conscience.
This is a government of law rather than arbitrary decisions of men, because the Bible is the final authority as a base. This was the impact of Samuel Rutherford’s book ,Lex Rex (1600-1661, book published in 1644). John Witherspoon (1723-1794) brought this work and its influence to bear on the U.S. Constitution. A second mediator of Rutherford’s influence was John Locke (1632-1704), who secularized the Presbyterian tradition, but drew heavily from Rutherford. Locke stressed inalienable rights, government by consent, separation of powers, and right of revolution. Locke was an empiricist (Essay concerning Human Understanding, 1690), and his empiricism really left no place for natural rights. Locke’s problem was that he lacked Rutherford’s biblical base. (I mention Locke briefly here because of his later impact on Alexander Campbell.)
The true basis for a society and government is Scripture. Therefore, the 51% vote is never a good indication of right or wrong because the absolutes of the Bible are available to judge a society. The “little man” can arise and say that the majority is wrong. This was reflected in part in the systems of checks and balances in government.
ENLIGHTENMENT
One more item must be mentioned—that is the Enlightenment. Voltaire, French philosopher (1694-1778) is often called the “father of the Enlightenment.” The French Revolution resulted in the authoritarian rule of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), in contrast to the bloodless revolution in England in 1688 after which William III of Orange and March were the monarchs, but Parliament was an equal partner with the crown. The destruction in such revolutions came not from the outside; it was in reality a product of the system. As in the later Russian Revolution, the humanist base has only two options—anarchy or repression. The experience in Europe, at least in those parts of Europe most influenced by the Reformation, involved quite a different dynamic.
On a biblical basis, there are absolutes; certain things are right or wrong. Justice is an absolute good, not just an expedient. Christians can oppose abnormalities without opposing God.
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March 26
How the Reformation set the stage for and contributed to the Restoration
Early U.S. history; early Restoration longings and efforts
By way of review, we have shown that the situation in Europe after 100 years of Reformation was an uneasy balance between biblical teaching and human endeavor and capacity. Secular influences were exalting human capacities. The Roman church was reflecting much of the same influence in the teaching that the church stands over Scripture (rather than under Scripture). Thus the Bible says whatever the church says its means. On the other hand, the Reformation was exalting Scripture and God, but some would say at the expense of human worth and capacity.